The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.

From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."

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Saturday, July 30, 2011

Only days after a deranged Anders Breivik claimed creeping Islamization of Norway as an excuse for cold-bloodedly murdering 76 people, the majority of which were children, a group of British Muslim extremists have seemingly mocked the tragedy by hanging bright yellow posters in several London boroughs declaring them “Sharia-controlled zones.”

One has to wonder about the timing.

Pasted on bus stops and street lamps, the posters have appeared in the London boroughs of Waltham Forest, Tower Hamlets and Newham. The message they convey is that there is to be “no gambling,” “no music or concerts,” “no porn or prostitution,” “no drugs or smoking” and “no alcohol” in the areas where the posters are displayed. The warning at the top reads: “You are entering a Sharia-controlled zone – Islamic rules enforced.” The messages are going up in both Muslim and non-Muslim-majority areas and are expected to appear country-wide.

“We now have hundreds, if not thousands of people up and down the country willing to go out and patrol the streets for us,” said Anjem Choudary, 41, the Muslim “preacher” claiming responsibility for the poster campaign.

A former lawyer, Choudary says that besides addressing “the sort of thug life attitude you get in British cities,” the campaign’s goal is also “to put the seeds down for an Islamic Emirate in the long term.” Choudary heads the banned radical Islamist group Islam4UK and has advocated for a Sharia-ruled Great Britain.

Choudary has a long association with radical Islamic politics in Britain. He was the co-founder of the Salafist group al-Muhajiroun (“the emigrants”) with Omar Bakri Mohammed. Bakri, a Lebanese citizen, once headed Great Britain’s Sharia law court and was prohibited from returning to Britain from Lebanon in 2005. The British government banned al-Muhajiroun last year.

Choudary also has a record for provocative behaviour. He once called the 9/11 terrorists “magnificent martyrs” and said the 2005 London subway bombings had been only “a matter of time.” He has also called for the execution of Pope Benedict, saying the Catholic leader had insulted Islam.

But Choudary is probably best known for a statement he made on a British television show after the interviewer suggested he should move to a country that already had Sharia law if he did not like Great Britain. Enraged, Choudary told the interviewer: “Who told you … that Great Britain belonged to you. The country belongs to Allah! If I were to move to the jungle, I would also not live there like the animals.”

One of the London areas targeted by the poster campaign, Tower Hamlets, has also seen “gay-free zone” warnings pasted on its walls in recent months, as well as women threatened by Islamists if they were not wearing headscarves. As a result of his extremist views, Choudary has received little support from Great Britain’s mainstream Muslim groups.

In a way, Choudary’s Sharia poster campaign is similar to the plan a Muslim group in America had to build a mosque at Ground Zero. With the Ground Zero mosque, the location was very suspect, while with the sharia posters, it is the timing. The possibility of a connection between the posters and the Norwegian tragedy may or may not exist, but the cultural and spiritual insensitivity of both initiatives, however, is great, especially with respect to the Ground Zero mosque plan.

But in the case of the poster campaign, just when Europe — and the rest of the world for that matter — is trying to come to grips with the senselessness of Norway’s tragedy, to promote Sharia law so soon after the event, whether deliberately or not, and claim it is part of a long-term plan to turn Great Britain into an Islamic state, is as unfeeling as it gets. Indirectly, with their posters the British Islamists are supporting Breivik’s evil, indicating his analysis was essentially correct concerning both the Islamization of Europe and multiculturalism. After all, the Sharia posters are obviously not an enlightened multicultural exchange.

Columnist Thomas Sowell described the planned mosque at Ground Zero as a big middle finger being given to America. The same can be said about the poster initiative vis-à-vis the Norwegian massacre. There is a human impulse to commiserate with Norwegians at this time, but the Sharia posters are not only devoid of compassion but also strike at our basic human sensitivity. And it is useless to think the Islamists will ever stop to think about some of these things. They have long used our tolerance to promote their intolerance and now are using our sense of decency and compassion against us to mutilate our world. Perhaps the more important question concerning this matter is why the community of moderate Muslim leaders is not condemning this offensive behaviour?

To their credit, the British police are investigating the posters with the intention of prosecuting the people who put them up. Part of the reason is to prevent any escalation. If Choudary’s Islamist thugs are allowed to walk the streets and enforce Sharia rules, frightening and intimidating people, the police know it would only be a matter of time before there would be a very unpleasant counter-reaction.

Ironically, because of the Oslo massacre Choudary says he is organizing a march against the English Right. Never ones to miss an opportunity, it is obvious that Islamic extremists like him will now cynically use the Oslo tragedy to deflect attention away from their own extremism.

“The Muslim community needs to be vigilant,” he said. “There is an undercurrent against Islam. I do believe a Norway-style attack could happen here.”

Contrary to Choudary’s belief, a Norway-style attack has already taken place in Great Britain. The 2005 London subway bombings by Islamic extremists took 52 lives and injured more than 700 people. Therefore, due to this home-grown tragedy, perhaps the most fitting prohibition symbol Choudary could put on his posters is one of a crossed-out bomb.

It seems indecent to analyze mass murder, and all the more so when perpetrated against young people. There are lessons to be learned from a national tragedy, a personal disaster. But an endless minute of silence runs like an undertow through all the words that follow.

Because this story unfolded over a weekend in July, reports were sketchier than usual. This is why I choose to present my observations as they took shape, day by day. An update will be published next week.

25 July 2011: The media break big stories with a narrative framework that usually comes from one source and fans out across the globe. Once the initial impression that Norway, too, was hit by Islamic terrorists had been contradicted, the new narrative clicked into place. The perpetrator is a conservative Christian ethnic Norwegian Islamophobe; Norwegians are shocked; they don't understand...they don't understand how anyone could do such a thing...kill young people in cold blood...how this could happen in Norway, a peaceful country that awards the Nobel peace prize, where people of all origins and beliefs live together peacefully?

The young people were gathered for their party's summer camp, to discuss, like young people everywhere, what's wrong with the world and how to set it right. We know that they enjoined their government to support the creation of a Palestinian state via a UN resolution this September. They were gathered -- about 600 of them -- on an island described as idyllic though currently cringing under an incessant chilly drizzle. On this island in the middle of a lake 35 kilometers from Oslo, a "Christian fundamentalist Islamophobe" proceeded, as if he were a real-life character in a 3-dimensional video game, to kill over 86 young people, perhaps more. Some are still missing.

Blanket press coverage of the tragedy temporarily wiped out the Murdoch NewsCorp scandal, impasse in Libya, daily murder in Syria, drought and famine (and shababs) in Somalia, and DSK awaiting his next hearing. A skimpy stock of endlessly repeated images reinforced the sense of unreality. There were tearful scenes, interviews with one or two survivors, press conferences, memorial ceremonies, and the constant repetition of blond-haired Norwegians saying they don't understand.

What I don't understand is how the man was able to shoot and kill to his heart's content for close to two hours. I was far less interested in his alleged political convictions than I was disturbed by the fact that close to 600 people with cell phones had not been able to get help. And I am even more disturbed by the fact that no one was asking that question. All the cockeyed ideas in the world don't explain why no one stopped the killer. He couldn't have 600 people in his sights at one time.

I'm looking at this from a distance...why aren't any of the reporters who cover the story interested in this extraordinary element? They spoke to survivors, described the horror, the terror, the anguish. I don't expect them to pepper these grieving young people with sharp questions. But I can't be the only person who is thinking, "Why didn't you do something to save yourselves...something besides running? Why did you swim out into the open even when you saw that he was shooting at swimmers? When did you call for help? Did you ask your parents to call the police?"

26 July 2011: Further information reveals that the young people on Utoya Island had been playing the new version of cops and robbers, with some cast as innocent Palestinians blocked at checkpoints, blockaded in Gaza, languishing in the world's biggest open-air prison, and others playing wicked Israeli soldiers. We have a photo of some campers proudly displaying a handmade "Boycott Israel" banner.

What happened, then, was a fatal clash between two fantasy worlds. The juvenile Socialists lived in an idyllic world where everyone gets along fine except for the big bad nasty Israelis. Anders Breivik lived in a fantasy world built on the writings of past and current freedom-loving thinkers that he piled one on top of the other like a child's building blocks and then brought crashing down with a furious kick. He thought he was so bright, reading anti-jihad authors, jabbering comments on websites, and constructing his evil project as if it were the logical extension of the works of my friends and colleagues.

When, in fact, he was sucking up jihad-style murderous hatred and shaping himself into a Nordic shahid.

The UK Telegraph has been forthcoming with interesting details on the killer's family life. A mother's boy, lived at home, no known girlfriends. He often visited his diplomat father -- who left the mother when Anders was a year old -- in Paris and London, but the father terminated this relationship when Anders was 15, because he was so unruly. His father belongs to the socialist party that owns the idyllic island where youths in their late teens were gathered to fight racism, reaffirm their legendary tolerance, and, lest we forget, vilify Israel.

The fact that an evil man dressed his deep-seated anger and resentment in this or that package of ideas does not in any way reflect on the ideas. The stampede to prove the link is laughable. The same commentators who are scolding the authors of books read by Breivik would logically now demand that the Koran be banned throughout the Western world. They would call for the mosques to be closed. In short, they would become, in their own terms, Islamophobes. But don't expect logic from that direction. There will be endless clutter about how the extreme right is just as if not more dangerous than al Qaeda.

On the other hand, there is no reason for anti-jihadists to find the slightest justification for the brutal mass murder of young Norwegian socialists. The idea that the Islamization of Europe is so oppressive that citizens have lost hope of influencing their governments and some, albeit fragile and deranged, turn to this type of violence is no less of a fantasy than the socialist's idyllic Norway and the killer's imagined Templars.

There is no chemical purity of ideas or schools of thought. Any individual can take any idea and turn it into something totally alien. So, look at the individual, not at the ideas.

And put the spotlight back on the essential question: where were the police? Why weren't the young people trained in self-defense? Where were the heroes that would tackle the killer and save their comrades? Anders Breivik committed mass murder because no one and nothing stopped him. Where were the police? An article in le Parisien sums it up with unconscious irony. Under the headline "The police explain...," we are told that the call for help came in at 17:30 -- one half-hour after the shooting began -- and the police arrived one hour later at 18:30 (approximate figures).

Bruce Bawer has provided vital background information on the understaffed, underappreciated, sometimes bungling Norwegian police. We are not forgetting the IED attack against government buildings in the center of Oslo set off by the killer to give himself time to get to the island. But do we expect the police department of a modern European city to be able to handle only one incident at a time?

The murderous impulse belongs to the killer alone. He is entirely responsible for his thoughts and acts. But the death toll must be shared out among all those who misconstrued the realities. Norwegian society seems determined to cling to illusions that left its youth like defenseless pawns before a killer. Or is it just the media that finds nothing but tolerance, pacifism, and upheld roses as signs of determination to remain standing in the face of terrible tragedy?

This Norway that outlawed kosher slaughter is a victim of mass slaughter. Perpetrated by one of their own. The lessons that can be drawn from this outrageous attack are far too painful to push in the face of our Norwegian neighbors today. But someday I hope they will understand that these children of the Western world who were pointing the arrows of their indignation at Israel were in fact aiming at themselves.

Friday, July 29, 2011

A U.S. Army private was arrested Wednesday in possession of explosive material which officials fear may have been part of a plan to launch another attack on the Fort Hood Army base in Texas.

The serviceman, identified by the FBI as Pvt. Naser Jason Abdo, 21, was taken into custody by the Killeen Police Department near Fort Hood after the owners of a local ammunition store, Guns Galore, alerted the police to Abdo's "suspicious" behavior in the store.

Abdo reportedly told law enforcement that the goal of his planned attack was to "get even."

"I would classify it as a terror plot," Killeen Police Chief Dennis Baldwin told reporters in an afternoon briefing.

After only one year in the army, Abdo reportedly realized he could not kill fellow Muslims and applied for conscientious objector status, preventing deployments to Iraq or Afghanistan.

"A Muslim is not allowed to participate in an Islamicly unjust war," he said in an interview with ABC News last August. In a separate statement he said that he did not "believe I can involve myself in an army that wages war against Muslims. I don't believe I could sleep at night if I take part, in any way, in the killing of a Muslim…"

Similar sentiments were expressed by Nidal Hasan, an Army psychiatrist charged with killing 13 people at Fort Hood in November 2009. Hasan had told classmates that he considered himself to be "a Muslim first and an American second" and he was found to have had email interaction with American-born al-Qaida cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen.

Awlaki hailed Hasan after the shooting, calling him "a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people."

One report indicates Abdo hoped to follow-up Hasan's attack by bombing a restaurant off the base that was popular with personnel stationed there.

Abdo was based at Fort Campbell, Ky. with the 101st Airborne Division. In June, 2010, after only one year in the army, Abdo applied for conscientious objector status on religious grounds before his first deployment to Afghanistan. Though initially denied by his superiors at Ft. Campbell, the objector status was ultimately granted to Abdo in June by the Assistant Deputy Secretary of the Army review board. But that was put on hold soon after when he was charged with possession of child pornography and he went AWOL on July 4th weekend.

In an online posting, Abdo claimed his arrest was in retaliation for his conscientious objector status.

"It has been nearly 10 months since the investigation started, he said in a June 23 Islampolicy article, "and I am only now being charged with child pornography when my C.O. claim is approved. I think that all sounds pretty fishy."

The army's decision to grant conscientious objector status was blasted by the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD). In a statement, the group called Abdo a traitor with an interpretation of Islam that "is dangerous and part of radical Islam globally."

"Abdo's obsession with Islamophobia is the same logic that drove the murderous rampage of Maj Nidal Hasan on Nov. 5, 2009 at Fort Hood," AIFD President and Navy veteran Zuhdi Jasser said in the statement. "Abdo's adherence to the global Islamist ideology above his American loyalty runs to the core of what we Muslims need to fight in real counterterrorism."

According to the congressman whose district includes Fort Hood, Abdo told FBI agents that he was "planning an attack on Fort Hood."

The gun dealer, Greg Ebert, told the police that he was "concerned with the quantity of his [Abdo's] request and his general demeanor." Ebert added, "There was clearly something wrong with him."

Abdo allegedly went into the store requesting gunpowder and "reloading options." After asking about 40-caliber ammunition, he bought three boxes of 12-gauge ammunition and a magazine for a pistol. Abdo paid in cash and then left in a cab.

FBI agents searching his hotel room later reportedly found gunpowder, shotgun shells, a pressure cooker, 18 pounds of sugar and ammunition. FBI Special Agent Eric Vasys said that Abdo "had some components which could be considered bomb-making materials." Abdo also purchased an Army uniform with Fort Hood patches from a local surplus store.

CNN reports that "Islamic extremist literature" was found in his backpack.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

The rally for freedom in China sponsored every July by adherents of Falun Gong is by far the most orderly and well-organized political demonstration that takes place in Washington, DC. This year’s rally of July 14 was no exception. Practitioners of the spiritual discipline combining meditation, graceful exercises, and breathing techniques with cultivation of virtue sat cross-legged on the ground in dozens and dozens of rows facing the U.S. Capitol. But few realize how, behind the scenes, Falun Gong is more successfully rocking repressive regimes around the world than could the most riotous of demonstrators.

Unlike many Washington protestors and demonstrators, Falun Gong members attending the rally for freedom were almost totally silent. There were no shouts of “No justice, no peace!” No chants of “Hey, hey, ho, ho. Hu Jintao​ has got to go.” But for their applause for the rally speakers, Falun Gong followers sat quietly in the hot sun. Members of Congress and representatives of human rights and religious freedom organizations that come every year to the rally brought greetings, condemned the actions of the Chinese government, and pledged their support to Falun Gong, persecuted Christians, and all those who are oppressed by the Communist regime.

In addition to sheer numbers, (seated adherents stretched all the way to the edge of the Capitol West Lawn) visual images spoke for the practitioners. Most of the hundreds of participants held posters declaring “Stop the Persecution of Falun Gong” or “Abolish the Chinese Communist Party.” Other participants’ peaceful expressions belied the horrific photos they displayed of the battered faces of friends and family members, practitioners who have been arrested, beaten, and put in China’s vast gulag, or brutally tortured to death. Flanking the seated participants on all sides stood other demonstrators supporting large, colorful banners that proclaimed both the goodness of Falun Gong, or “Falun Dafa,” as it is also known, and the evil of the CCP and Communism. It was a refreshing change in a climate where Chairman Mao​ and Che Guevara​ are fashion statements and in which we are informed by our betters at Newsweek that “we are all socialists now.”

July 2011 marked twelve years of the CCP’s brutal persecution of Falun Gong. First founded by Li Hongzhi in 1992, Falun Gong’s practitioners numbered over 70 million by the mid-1990’s, to the great alarm of the Communist regime. Falun Gong was outlawed on July 20, 1999 as “neither a religion nor a spiritual movement” but “an evil cult against humanity, science and society.” Communist Party Chairman Jiang Zemin created a government office to “eradicate” Falun Gong, and leading practitioners immediately were arrested. By 2008 the U.S. State Department’s Human Rights Report on China noted that “some foreign observers estimated that Falun Gong adherents constituted at least half of the 250,000 officially recorded inmates in re-education through labor (RTL) camps, while Falun Gong sources overseas placed the number even higher.”

The numbers of Falun Gong practitioners that have been tortured and killed grew throughout the nineties, and continued into the twenty-first century. In 2003, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions, Asma Jahangir​, reported that she continued “to be alarmed by deaths in custody in China.” She concluded that “the cruelty and brutality of these alleged acts of torture” against followers of the Falun Gong movement “defy description.” In just the first four months of 2011, sources reported the deaths of 26 Falun Gong practitioners from various age groups and regions of China.

Even as persecution continues, Falun Gong is having a tremendous impact on the struggle for freedom not only in China, but around the world. Human rights activist Michael Horowitz says that Falun Gong followers are “changing the course of history.” First, in 2004, Falun Gong’s international newspaper The Epoch Times published an exposé of the deception and violence of the CCP. The Nine Commentaries on the Chinese Communist Partyfeature such topics as “On How the Chinese Communist Party Destroyed Traditional Culture” and “On the Chinese Communist Party’s History of Killing.” One topic even turns the tables on the CCP and explains “On How the Chinese Communist Party is An Evil Cult.”

Reaction to the Nine Commentaries has been astounding. In the seven years since their publication, over 98 million people have left the Party. To assist in this process, the Falun Gong initiated the “Tuidang Movement.” Tuidang, which translates as “withdraw from the Communist Party,” signifies withdrawing or renouncing membership in the CCP or its affiliated youth organizations, the Young Pioneers and the Communist Youth League​. The Tuidang Movement was recognized in U.S. Senate Resolution 232, just introduced on July 13, 2011. Yi Rong, the chairwoman of Falun Gong’s aptly named “Quitting the CCP Service Center,” was one of the speakers at this year’s rally. She revealed that Tuidang volunteers both inside China and around the world process over 60,000 quitting statements each day.

But opening the eyes of former Communist Party members through the Nine Commentaries is not the only way in which Falun Gong practitioners are changing the world and fighting for freedom. In 2000, Chinese-American Falun Gong followers launched the Global Internet Freedom Consortium, (GIF). This is a series of free downloadable programs with names such as “Freegate” and “Ultrasurf” that allow Internet users to bypass the servers that are censored by their government and access the Internet via GIF’s servers that are spread across the world.

The CCP is one of the world’s leaders in Internet censorship. According to David Feith in the Wall Street Journal, the Chinese regime uses more than 40,000 censors in a dozen government agencies to limit web content via the “Great Firewall” of China. “Just as East Germans diminished Soviet legitimacy by escaping across Checkpoint Charlie, ‘hacktivists’ today do the same by breaching Internet cyberwalls,” says Feith.

Falun Gong’s GIF, accessible to Internet users worldwide, has been invaluable to dissidents in such countries as Burma, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Vietnam, and Iran. During Iran’s Green Revolution, demonstrators had more contact with the outside world because of GIF. They so flooded GIF’s servers to access Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other sites, that on June 22, 2009 the consortium had to temporarily block usage in order to keep the system from crashing.

Devastated Iranians sent thousands of messages to GIF, pleading for restoration of the service. “Technically, to us, Iranian people, web means Freegate, Ultrasurf. . . Please hear us. Don’t let freedom die. Don’t let hope fade away. And let people be informed, connected and empowered,” one message entreated. GIF worked nonstop to resume services to Iran after midnight the same day, but without resource-consuming video services. They then received many requests from Iran for YouTube services to post videos about the crackdown. So the GIF team again worked tirelessly and resumed YouTube and some other video services early the next morning. According to Feith, during the protests of June 20, 2009 alone, more than one million Iranians used GIF to visit 390 million pages on the uncensored Internet.

In July of the same year, the U.S. Senate’s State Department/Foreign Appropriations Subcommittee approved $30 million for Internet freedom activities. With additional (U.S. made) servers, GIF swiftly could increase its capacity to 50 million users per day and would never have to block usage as they had done during the Green Revolution. Sadly, although the State Department received the $30 million from Congress in October 2009, it has not released the funds for these purposes.

Commenting on this in the Washington Post on April 5, 2011, Anne Applebaum revealed that a State Department official told her that the department “lacked technical expertise and had been forced to reorganize itself to ‘unify the policy’ before issuing a call for proposals.” Applebaum added that there may be other, “darker motives: weakness, cowardice, anxiety in not wanting to displease the governments that create firewalls — especially the Chinese government.” Even in the unlikely case that those darker motives do not exist, the State Department is drowning a simple solution to circumventing Internet censorship in the murky waters of government bureaucracy.

The New York Times on June 12, 2011 reported in glowing terms on the State Department’s internet freedom activities. But Horowitz, an advisor to GIF, says that the Times story “glamorizes black box stuff, ignores present, real world possibilities for mass circumvention of closed society Internet firewalls and applauds an R & D approach to Internet freedom that, at best, won’t/can’t be operational for years.” He and other activists continue to urge the U.S. government to support the extremely efficient and already successful work of groups like GIF rather than, literally, reinvent the Internet.

Another of the Iranian freedom fighters of 2009 wrote poignantly to GIF, “If it was not for flicker, twitter, facebook and simply email nobody would have known what is happening in Iran. . . . If not for internet these events would have been 1000 times uglier and more brutal. . . . Let the citizens of the world know you as freedom heroes.”

Sometimes “freedom heroes” never intended to fight, only to cultivate daily the virtues of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance like the followers of Falun Gong. But the CCP brought the fight to them, and now they are on the frontlines of a battle for freedom not just for China, but for victims of repressive governments all over the world.

Faith J. H. McDonnell directs The Institute on Religion and Democracy’s Religious Liberty Program and Church Alliance for a New Sudan.

The PA honors terrorists who have killed civilians, presenting them as heroes and role models

The PA glorifies terror attacks as heroic, including suicide bombings

The PA funds these salaries and activities from its general budget

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US funding of the Palestinian Authority:

The US funds the PA general budget

US law prohibits funding of any person who "... engages in, or has engaged in, terrorist activity…"

US law prohibits funding "for the purpose of recognizing or otherwise honoring individuals who commit, or have committed acts of terrorism."

PA Pays Monthly Salaries to Terrorists - Essential Facts

1. New PA law enacts payment of monthly salaries to terrorists in Israeli prisons:

A law signed and published in the official Palestinian Authority Registry in April 2011 puts all Palestinians and Israeli Arabs imprisoned in Israel for terror crimes on the PA payroll to receive a monthly salary from the PA. [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 15, 2011] This new law called PA Government Resolution of 2010, numbers 21 and 23, formalizes what has long been a PA practice.

2. Recipients of the monthly salary:

The PA has defined by law which Palestinians would be considered "prisoners":

"Anyone imprisoned in the occupation's [Israel's] prisons as a result of his

participation in the struggle against the occupation." [Ch. 1 of Law of Prisoners, 2004/19,passed and published by the PA Chairman and Government, December 2004.

The Prisoners' Centre for Studies, www.alasra.ps, Accessed May 9, 2011]

According to the PA definition, more than 5,500 Palestinian prisoners serving time for terror-related offenses are recipients. [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 14, 2011] Palestinian car thieves in Israeli prisons will not receive a salary, but every terrorist in prison including murderers are on the PA payroll. The salary goes directly to the terrorist or the terrorist's family, and prisoners receive salary from the day of arrest. [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 15, 2011]

3. Hamas and Fatah terrorist prisoners receive monthly salaries:

"The PA's Ministry for Prisoner Affairs said that its policy had always been to pay salaries to prisoners and their families 'regardless of their political affiliations.'" [Jerusalem Post, May 20, 2011].

4. Total amount that the PA pays in salaries to prisoners monthly:

Total: 17,678,247 Shekel ($5,207,000) a month, based on May 2011.

[Life and the Market, supplement to Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 19, 2011]

5. Terrorists in prison receive higher average salary than PA civil servants and military personnel

Average monthly salary

Salary recipients

2,882

Civil servant

2,704

Military personnel

3,129

Prisoner

[Life and the Market supplement to Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 19, 2011]

6. PA salary payments to prisoners is dependent on foreign funding

The new PA law stipulates that payment of salaries "will be implemented... on the basis of available sources of funding." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 15, 2011] Accordingly, it is the contributions by the US and other foreign donors to the PA general budget that facilitates the payment of monthly salaries to the terrorist prisoners.

"Prior to the obligation of funds appropriated by this Act under the heading 'Economic Support Fund' for assistance for the West Bank and Gaza, the Secretary of State shall take all appropriate steps to ensure that such assistance is not provided to or through any individual, private or government entity, or educational institution that the Secretary knows or has reason to believe advocates, plans, sponsors, engages in, or has engaged in, terrorist activity…"

8. The US contributed $225 million in 2010 to the general PA budget from whichthe salaries are paid

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that an additional US grant in November 2010 "brings our direct budget assistance to a total of $225 million for the year and our overall support and investment to nearly $600 million this year."

[State dept. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Announcement of the Transferof Budget Assistance Funds to the Palestinian Authority, Nov. 10, 2010]

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PA's Honoring Terrorists - Essential Facts:

9. The PA leadership and the structures they control present terrorist murderers as heroes and role models, and use the PA budget to honor them and glorify their terror attacks.

The following are examples from 2011:

10. A Palestinian Authority summer camp for children sponsored by PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad divided its campers into three groups named after the terrorists Dalal Mughrabi, Salah Khalaf and Abu Ali Mustafa. [Al-Ayyam, July 20, 2011, reported in PMW bulletin, July 21, 2011]

Dalal Mughrabi in 1978 led the most lethal terror attack in Israel's history, in which 37 civilians were killed, including one American and 12 children.Salah Khalaf (Abu Iyad), head of Black September terror group, planned the murder of two American diplomats, and the Munich Olympics attack in 1972, and other terror attacks.Abu Ali Mustafa, General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, planned many terror attacks against civilians.

11. PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad honored terrorist bombers

"Prime Minister Salam Fayyad opened his weekly radio address… by sending greetings to the Palestinian mother in honor of Mothers' Day... He said, 'On this occasion, I will not fail to mention with honor and admiration the resolve of the female prisoners, the fighters, and of all the prisoners of freedom who are imprisoned in the Israeli prisons, experiencing indescribable suffering… I make special mention of all the female prisoners who are mothers: Iman Ghazawi;… Qahira Al-Sa'adi; Irena Sarahneh; Latifa Abu Zara'a…'" [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 24, 2011, reported in PMW bulletin, March 27, 2011]

PA Minister of Prisoners' Affairs Issa Karake visited the family of the terrorist Abbas Al-Sayid who planned the Passover suicide bombing in 2002. 30 Israelis were killed in the terror attack during the Passover Seder dinner. The PA minister handed the family an honorary plaque. [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 29, 2011, reported in PMW bulletin, March 31, 2011]

PA Minister of Prisoners' Affairs Issa Karake participated in a ceremony honoring all 73 Palestinians from Bethlehem serving life sentences in prison. The PA unveiled a "Tree of Freedom for Prisoners" decorated with 73 "photographs of prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 20, 2011, reported in PMW bulletin, May 19, 2011]

The official PA daily reported on the visit of the Palestinian Prisoners' Center for Studies to the homes of terrorists serving life sentences for murder. The PA daily referred to the terrorists as follows: "The heroic prisoners Abbas and Abdallah Barghouti, Mahmoud Issa, Jamal Abu Al-Haija, Hassan Salameh..." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 13, 2011]

Hassan Salameh - 38 life sentences. Was head of the terror infrastructure which carried out 2 suicide bombing attacks on buses in Jerusalem (Feb. 25, 1996, March 3, 1996), and the suicide bombing at the Ashkelon Junction (Feb. 25, 1996).

17. Official PA TV glorified terrorist Dalal Mughrabi to celebrate Fatah anniversaryOn the anniversary of the Fatah movement, PA TV chose to glorify the most lethal terror attack in Israel's history with a music video celebrating Dalal Mughrabi and the attack she led. The video shows a reenactment the terrorists coming from Lebanon to Israel in boats.

[PA TV, Jan. 2, 2011, reported in PMW bulletin, January 21, 2011]

18. Official PA TV honored the woman who drove a suicide terrorist to his bombing that murdered 15 in pizza shop attack

PA TV broadcast a program honoring Ahlam Tamimi, the woman who drove the suicide terrorist to the Sbarro pizza restaurant in Jerusalem in August 2001. 15 people were murdered in the attack, 7 of them children. Visiting Tamimi's home, the PA TV crew interviewed her relatives, and the camera focused on an award which read:

PA TV honored terrorist, Fahami Mashahra, who drove a suicide bomber to Jerusalem in 2001 in which 19 were murdered. The PA TV host said to his daughter:

"Greetings of honor and admiration to your heroic father in prison, Fahami Mashahra, serving 20 life sentences in the occupation's prison. Thank you very much." [PA TV, March 4, 2011, reported in PMW bulletin, May 17, 2011]

20. Advisor of Mahmoud Abbas: "The weapons must be turned towards the main enemy [Israel]" and terrorist Dalal Mughrabi must be honored by naming a square after her:

"Advisor of President Mahmoud Abbas Sabri Saidam, delivered a speech... He emphasized that the weapons must be turned towards the main enemy [Israel] and that internal differences of opinion must be set aside… and emphasized that the anniversary of Dalal's Martyrdom-seeking (i.e., her terror attack in which 37 civilians were murdered) should be amplified by inaugurating a square in her name in the city of El-Bireh."

[Al-Ayyam, March 10, 2011, reported in PMW bulletin, March 13, 2011]

21. Fatah movement lauded suicide bombers

"The Fatah movement commemorated at the Deheisheh [refugee] camp the anniversary of some of the camp's Shahids (Martyrs)... The movement organized a procession… [to] the home of the Shahid Muhammad Daraghmeh, who carried out a bombing operation (i.e., suicide bombing which killed 9) in Jerusalem… [and mentioned] Ayyat Al-Akhras (at age 17, the youngest female suicide bomber, killed two Israelis in her suicide attack in March, 2002.)" [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 4, 2011]

A PA TV video tribute to "Martyrs" that was broadcast on PA TV several times a day for four days honored a terrorist who killed three Israelis and one who recruited female suicide terrorists and planned a double suicide attack in Tel Aviv. A photo collage in the same video tribute was labeled "Heroes of the special operations in northern Palestine" which referred to terror attacks in northern Israel. [PA TV, several times daily Feb. 21-24, 2011, reported in PMW bulletin, March 13, 2011]

"None of the funds appropriated under titles III through VI of this Act for assistance under the West Bank and Gaza Program may be made available for the purpose of recognizing or otherwise honoring individuals who commit, or have committed acts of terrorism."

Summary – the US funds the PA budget which pays terrorist salaries and glorifies terrorists

24. The Palestinian Authority pays over $5,000,000 a month directly to terrorists as salaries. In addition to the examples cited here, Palestinian Media Watch has documented many other examples of the PA's honoring terrorists and presenting them as heroes and role models. Still in 2011, this glorification of terrorists is a mainstay of PA policy under Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and PM Salam Fayyad, who as shown above are actively involved.

25. The US funds the PA's general budget. Through the PA budget the US is paying the salaries of terrorist murderers in prison and funding the glorification and role modeling of terrorists.

26. US law prohibits giving assistance "to or through any individual… that the Secretary knows or has reason to believe advocates, plans, sponsors, engages in, or has engaged in, terrorist activity…"

27. US law prohibits using US funds "for the purpose of recognizing or otherwise honoring individuals who commit, or have committed acts of terrorism."

Measuring Palestinian Authority

compliance with US anti-terror funding laws

In order to comply with US anti-terror funding laws there are clearly defined and quantifiable steps that the Palestinian Authority should implement:

1. The PA should repeal the law "PA Government resolutions, numbers 21 and 23 of 2010" which grants all terrorists in Israeli prisons a PA monthly salary

2. The PA should stop paying salaries to terrorists in Israeli prisons (as they have admitted to doing even before the law)

3. The PA should stop honoring and role modeling terrorists through naming of places and events in their honor

4. The PA should stop having PA dignitaries and ministers visit terrorists' homes and stop granting their families awards in their names

All of these steps can be implemented immediately and are easily monitored.

US LAW

CONSOLIDATED APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2010

(PUBLIC LAW 111–117—DEC. 16, 2009 page 3366)

ASSISTANCE FOR THE WEST BANK AND GAZA

SEC. 7039. (a) OVERSIGHT.—For fiscal year 2010, 30 days prior to the initial obligation of funds for the bilateral West Bank and Gaza Program, the Secretary of State shall certify to the Committees on Appropriations that procedures have been established to assure the Comptroller General of the United States will have access to appropriate United States financial information in order to review the uses of United States assistance for the Program funded under the heading "Economic Support Fund" for the West Bank and Gaza.

(b) VETTING.—Prior to the obligation of funds appropriated by this Act under the heading "Economic Support Fund" for assistance for the West Bank and Gaza, the Secretary of State shall take all appropriate steps to ensure that such assistance is not provided to or through any individual, private or government entity, or educational institution that the Secretary knows or has reason to believe advocates, plans, sponsors, engages in, or has engaged in, terrorist activity nor, with respect to private entities or educational institutions, those that have as a principal officer of the entity's governing board or governing board of trustees any individual that has been determined to be involved in, or advocating terrorist activity or determined to be a member of a designated foreign terrorist organization: Provided, That the Secretary of State shall, as appropriate, establish procedures specifying the steps to be taken in carrying out this subsection and shall terminate assistance to any individual, entity, or educational institution which the Secretary has determined to be involved in or advocating terrorist activity.

(c) PROHIBITION.—

(1) None of the funds appropriated under titles III through VI of this Act for assistance under the West Bank and Gaza Program may be made available for the purpose of recognizing or otherwise honoring individuals who commit, or have committed acts of terrorism.

Palestinian Authority Sources

New PA law granting salaries to terrorists measured and that the PA should do: Law in 2010

The following is the article in the official PA daily quoting the new Palestinian Authority law:

"[Ali Abu Diak,] Secretary of the Central Bureau of the Prisoners' Movement, presented a concise review of the laws [concerning prisoners] published in vol. 90 of the official PA [Government] Registry, published on April 13, as follows:

1. Government resolution #19 of 2010...:

A released prisoner will be exempt from tuition fees at government schools and universities if he served a period of five years or more in prison. A released female prisoner who served at least three years in prison will be exempt from tuition fees at government schools and universities. These prisoners are entitled to transfer the exemption to one of their children, or to their spouse...

The Palestinian Authority is committed to providing the opportunity for academic study for prisoners in Israeli prisons, by covering all study expenses for all stages of university study available to prisoners.

A prisoner's children will be exempt from 80% of academic tuition fees if the prisoner was sentenced to at least 20 years and has been in prison for at least 5 years. Children of a female prisoner will be exempt from 80% of university tuition fees if the prisoner was sentenced to at least 10 years, and has served as least 3 years.

Every released prisoner will be exempt from governmental health insurance if he served at least 5 years in prison, and for female prisoners - at least 3 years. ...

2. Government resolution #21 of 2010, concerning the amendment to provide for the needs of prisoners within Israeli prisons:

a. Every prisoner will be paid a uniform sum linked to the cost of living index, as a monthly expenditure ...

b. Every prisoner will be paid a uniform sum of 400 [Israeli] Shekels for clothing. The sum will be paid twice a year, and will be added to the prisoner's salary...

3. Government resolution # 22 of 2010, concerning the amendment to provide for the prisoners' legal needs...

4. Government resolution # 23 of 2010 concerning the amendment on payment of a monthly salary to the prisoner:

Every prisoner will be granted a monthly salary, to be paid to him or to his family, on condition that he does not receive a salary from a [different] governmental or semi-governmental body or official institution... The salary will be paid to the prisoner from the date of his arrest, and a special supplement will be paid to prisoners from Jerusalem and from the Interior [i.e., Israeli Arabs]; a spousal supplement will be paid, and a special supplement for children up to the age of 18...

The minimum salary for a prisoner, to be paid to him from the beginning of his detention and for up to 3 years, is 1400 Shekels. Prisoners who have been imprisoned between 3 and 5 years will receive 2,000 Shekels. Those imprisoned between 5 and 10 years will receive 4,000 Shekels. Those imprisoned between 10 and 15 years will receive 6,000 Shekels. Those imprisoned between 15 and 20 years will receive 7,000 Shekels. Those imprisoned between 20 and 25 years will receive 8,000 Shekels. Those imprisoned between 25 and 30 years will receive 10,000 Shekels. Those who have been imprisoned 30 years or more will receive 12,000 Shekels.

A supplement of 300 Shekels will be added to the salary of every married prisoner, as well as a supplement for children up to the age of 18 in the amount of 50 Shekels for every boy or girl, in addition to a supplement for prisoners from Jerusalem in the amount of 300 Shekels, and a supplement for prisoners from the Interior [i.e., Israeli Arabs] in the amount of 500 Shekels ...

These regulations will be implemented from Jan. 1, 2011, on the basis of available sources of funding."

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 15, 2011]

PA Salaries from the general budget in May 2011 measured and that the PA should do: Law in 2010

"An official document, a copy of which reached Life and the Market (supplement to the official PA daily), reveals that the cost of salaries [in the PA budget] is much higher than people think. According to the document, the sum of monthly salaries for May 2011 totaled 727,287,824 Shekel ($214,412,683.96 USD), paid from the treasury of the [Palestinian] National Authority…

The document shows that the largest portion of the salaries' expense - more than 40% - was paid to civil servants. A total of 293,435,045 Shekel was paid to 101,802 civil servants, about three quarters of them in the West Bank. The average salary for a civil servant in the Palestinian Authority is 2882 NIS…

The military personnel of the Palestinian Authority occupy second place – 24% - in the cost of salaries, with a total of 172,873,226 NIS. Surprisingly, the Gaza Strip represents more than 55% of the total cost of salaries of military personnel. The average salary for members of the PA military personnel is 2704 NIS…

The PA transfers about 7% of the cost of salaries overseas, in the form of salaries to personnel at consulates and the Palestine National Fund, foreign fronts, and PLO forces and institutions, in the amount of 51,872,446 NIS.

As for the prisoners (i.e., in Israeli prisons), they receive approximately 2.5% of the cost of salaries [for May], in the form of salaries and [additional] payments, totaling 17,678,247 Shekel ($5,211,747).

Taking care of families of Shahids (Martyrs), inside and outside [the PA], totals about 3.5% of the total cost of salaries [for May], in the amount of 26,458,137 NIS.

The West Bank received the majority of the payments and salaries to prisoners, while the Gaza Strip receives a greater portion of the budget for assistance to Shahids' families. The average prisoner salary is 3129 NIS… Salaries for members of the inactive Parliament (Legislative Council) [which has not been meeting since the Fatah–Hamas conflict] totaled approximately 0.5% of the cost of salaries – 3,272,316 NIS."

[Life and the Market, supplement to Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 19, 2011]

Media outlets in Europe and the United States are accusing Western critics of Islam and multiculturalism of complicity in the mass killing of more than 70 people in Norway. The attempt to exploit this crime for political gain is not just a case of malicious opportunism. It also represents the latest and most unsavoury salvo in the long-running war on free speech in Europe.

Anders Behring Breivik, a deranged Norwegian accused of bombing government buildings in Oslo and then killing scores of young people during a 90-minute shooting rampage on a nearby camping island called Utoya, published a 1,500-page manifesto in which he vents his anger at the direction in which mostly leftwing elites in Norway and elsewhere in Europe are leading his country and the continent as a whole.

As it turns out, parts of the manifesto include cut-and-pasted blog posts from European and American analysts and writers who for years have been educating the general public about the destructive effects of multiculturalism and runaway Muslim immigration. By dint of duplicitous logic, these analysts and writers are now the victims of a smear campaign: multiculturalists are accusing them of inciting Breivik to murder.

These same analysts have, of course, been a constant bane on an unaccountable European elite determined to foist its post-modern, post-nationalist and post-Christian multicultural agenda on a sceptical European citizenry.

Unwilling to countenance opposition, these self-appointed guardians of European political correctness have laboured to silence public discussion about issues such as the rise of Islam in Europe and/or the failure of millions of Muslim immigrants to integrate into European society.

Prosecutions of so-called anti-Islam hate speech are now commonplace in Europe. Some of the more well-known efforts to silence debate about Islam in Europe have involved high-profile individuals like Geert Wilders, a Dutch politician, and Brigitte Bardot, a French animal rights activist.

In other cases, physical violence has been the preferred method of silencing contrary views of Islam in Europe. In 2002, for example, Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn was assassinated for his views on Muslim immigration, and in 2004, Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was stabbed to death for producing a movie that criticized Islam. In 2010, Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard narrowly escaped being assassinated by an axe-wielding Muslim extremist in Aarhus, Denmark's second-largest city.

Many theories attempt to explain the rise of multiculturalism in Europe. Among these is the idea that European elites, determined to prevent a repeat of the carnage of the Second World War, embraced multiculturalism as a tool to try to dilute or even eliminate the national ethnic, religious and or/cultural identities that contributed to centuries of violence in Europe.

But in recent years, the secular purveyors of European multiculturalism have moved far beyond their initial objective of creating an American-style "melting pot." European socialists now view multiculturalism as a means to eliminate the entire Judeo-Christian worldview. This is certainly the case in Spain, where socialists have joined arms with Islam in a "Red-Green Alliance" to confront a common enemy, Christianity, as represented, in this case, by the Roman Catholic Church.

To be sure, decades of multiculturalism and Muslim immigration have already transformed Europe in ways unimaginable only a few decades ago. In Britain, for example, Muslims currently are campaigning to turn twelve British cities -- including what they call "Londonistan" -- into independent Islamic states. The so-called Islamic Emirates would function as autonomous enclaves ruled by Islamic Sharia law and operate entirely outside British jurisprudence. More than 80 Sharia courts are already operating in the country. At the same time, Mohammed is now the most common name for baby boys.

In France, large swaths of Muslim neighbourhoods are now considered "no-go" zones by French police. At last count, there are 751 Sensitive Urban Zones (Zones Urbaines Sensibles, ZUS), as they are euphemistically called. An estimated 5 million Muslims live in the ZUS, parts of France over which the French state has lost control.

In Germany, anti-Semitism (which is often disguised as anti-Zionism), has reached levels not seen since the Second World War. An April 2011 report, for example, found that 47.7% of Germans believe "Israel is conducting a war of extermination against the Palestinians," and nearly 50% of Germans believe "Jews try to take advantage of having been victims of the Nazi era."

In Norway, large sections of Oslo are being turned into Muslim enclaves subject to Sharia law and to the dictates of local imams. The citizens of Oslo are also struggling to cope with an epidemic of rapes. According to recent statistics, 100% of aggravated sexual assaults which resulted in rapes over the past three years were carried out by Muslim immigrants. Norwegians are now trying to deal with the large-scale torching of automobiles, which, as in France, is being attributed to Muslim youth.

In a Wall Street Journal essay titled "Inside the Mind of the Oslo Murderer," Bruce Bawer, an American analyst who lives in Oslo, writes: "Norway, like the rest of Europe, is in serious trouble. Millions of European Muslims live in rigidly patriarchal families in rapidly growing enclaves where women are second-class citizens, and where non-Muslims dare not venture. Surveys show that an unsettling percentage of Muslims in Europe reject Western values, despise the countries they live in, support the execution of homosexuals, and want to replace democracy with Sharia law. (According to a poll conducted by the Telegraph, 40% of British Muslims want Sharia implemented in predominantly Muslim parts of the United Kingdom.)"

Bawer describes Norway as a country that stands out for its refusal to confront any of the real dangers posed by Islamic radicalism. He also says the failure of mainstream political leaders to responsibly address the challenges posed by Muslim immigration has contributed to the emergence of extremists like Breivik. Pressure cookers without a safety valve eventually will explode.

Bawer writes: "In bombing those government buildings and hunting down those campers, Breivik was not taking out people randomly. He considered the Labour Party, Norway's dominant party since World War II, responsible for policies that are leading to the Islamization of Europe -- and thus guilty of treason. The Oslo bombing was intended to be an execution of the party's current leaders. The massacre at the camp -- where young would-be politicians gathered to hear speeches by Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and former Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland -- was meant to destroy its next generation of leaders."

The question remains: in the aftermath of the attack, will the Norwegian left rethink its non-interventionist approach to Islam and Muslim immigration? In a number of other European countries, governments on the center-right have been doing an about-face on multiculturalism.

Some analysts say these measures are too little too late. But one thing seems clear: European multiculturalists are feeling some unfamiliar political heat. After decades of high-handed stifling of debate, the gradual unravelling of multiculturalism in Europe explains the obsessive zeal with which many are exploiting the Norwegian tragedy.

By falsely accusing conservatives of complicity in a crime in which they had no part, multiculturalists are seeking to delegitimize and silence criticism of their social re-engineering scheme. But they are unlikely to succeed as the consequences of their worldview are becoming clear for all to see.

As the United States begins its scheduled 2014 troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Afghan government has intensified its reconciliation efforts with the Taliban.Needless to say, the outcome of any subsequent peace deal with the Taliban holds enormous consequences for the women of Afghanistan, given the brutality they suffered at the hands of the fundamentalist regime.

Thus, many Afghan women have been adamant that any negotiations with the Taliban have substantial female representation, as a way to ensure that the rights they have gained won’t be crushed if the Taliban returns to the Afghan fold.

This seemed like a genuine possibility at first, when Afghan President Hamid Karzai created the High Peace Council to direct negotiations with the Taliban and gave the committee female representation. Unfortunately, the government top-loaded the council with 60 men and only 9 women, a disparity in numbers that brought immediate concern from Afghanistan’s nascent crop of women leaders.

One such leader, Fauzia Kofi, a member of Afghanistan’s parliament, said of the female council members, “They’re negotiating for our rights — for my rights, for the rights of my daughters — from a position of weakness.” Suraya Parlika, head of the All Afghan Women’s Union, added, “The women on the council are…pawns.”

Unfortunately, their view was confirmed by the council’s deputy director, Ataullah Luddin, who said, “They want to go as a group of women to meet with Mullah Omar [the Taliban supreme leader]. But that’s just not possible. If they go, they will be killed.” Luddin also added with a laugh, “And anyway, we all know that women can’t keep a secret for more than 34 hours.”

Luddin’s quip notwithstanding, his appraisal of the Taliban response to such an encounter was spot on. While Muslim men in the region more often than not treat women little better than livestock, the Taliban’s approach takes the situation to a whole other, disturbing level.

Under Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001, life for Afghan women was nothing short of a terrifying nightmare. Required to wear a head-to-toe burqa, Afghan women were forbidden to work outside the home or even leave their homes unless accompanied by a close male relative.

Other prohibitions on women included being banned from appearing on the balconies of their apartments or houses, laughing loudly, being photographed or filmed, or being in public gatherings of any kind. Failure to abide by any of these rules resulted in public whippings, beatings or stoning.

In addition, the Taliban banned both sexes from listening to music, watching movies, television and videos. While the Taliban banned most sports, those that were allowed required spectators to replace clapping with chants of Allahu Akbar (“God is great”).

When the Taliban was ousted in 2001 and Afghan women were freed from their terrible yoke, they made some remarkableprogress in the ensuing years. In fact, many of their gains have been quite significant, such as Afghan women being elected to government office, allowed to attend school or trained to be military pilots. Other achievements, perhaps less noteworthy but equally groundbreaking, include Afghan women training to be Olympic boxers or openly marching in protest for women’s rights.

One such protest came recently when 30 Afghan women marched through the streets of Kabul protesting sexual harassment, carrying banners that read: “This street belongs to me” and “We won’t stand insults anymore.” While the protest march drew angry stares from male onlookers and necessitated a full security escort, the fact that it was even allowed was in itself a mark of substantial achievement.

Of course, it should be noted that these incremental steps of progress can’t paper over the fact that life for most Afghan women is still a Hobbesian existence. According to the US State Department, Afghanistan is a major source, transit, and destination country for the forced labor and sex trafficking of women and children.

Most of those trafficked were girls under age 18, with about 29 percent having been forced into marriage after being “raped, kidnapped, harassed or exposed to violence.”

Not unexpectedly, the result of these and other abuses has made the life expectancy of Afghan women just 44 years, with a recent UN report also finding 31 percent of them suffering physical violence and another 30 percent suffering from psychological trauma.

The advancement in human rights, respect and education for Afghan women and girls may be only marginal, but the gains are nonetheless threatened by negotiations with the Taliban.

Still, some have said that the entire High Peace Council gender debate is much ado about nothing, as talks with the Taliban to discuss a framework of reconciliation have reportedly gone nowhere. In fact, the Taliban has adamantly denied that any peace talks have ever occurred. As Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid​ recently said, “There is no negotiation…we deny any report about such kind of peace talks.”

While some Taliban have joined the Afghan government, and some lower and mid-level fighters have reintegrated into their communities, its 30,000 insurgents still seem fiercely intent on continuing the insurgency and relinquishing their lost power.

To prove that point, violence in Afghanistan has exploded to record levels, as insurgents have been markedly increasing their attacks on US coalition forces, as well as stepping up suicide strikes, bombings and intimidation against Afghan officials and civilians. According to a July report by the Afghanistan Analysts Network, there has been a 119 percent rise in insurgency attacks, as well as a 106 percent rise in civilian casualties over the past year.

Recent examples of the Taliban assault on the Afghan civilian population include the hanging of an 8-year-old boy from a balcony after his father, an Afghan policeman, refused to comply with their demands to provide them with a police vehicle; the beheading of four men who were working to remove land mines from western Afghanistan; and the forcing of an 8-year-old girl to detonate herself at an Afghan police checkpoint.

Moreover, the Taliban has assassinated six high-profile Afghan government figures in the last month, including President Karzai’s half-brother, Ahmad Wali Karzai, and Jan Mohammad Khan, the former governor of southern Urozgan. The most recent victim was the mayor of Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second largest city, who was killed by a suicide bomber hiding an explosive device in his turban.

So, despite the investment of men, time, and money in developing an effective Afghan National Army (ANA) and police force to save the existing regime from sliding back into Taliban control, all signs seem to point to an eventual Taliban triumph.

That dismal prospect is why some have pinned their hopes on reaching some accommodations with the Taliban. As Najia Zewari, a female High Peace Council member, said, “We want the Taliban to know that they respect our rights.”

Yet, that prospect seems unlikely to ever come to fruition. Human Rights Watch Washington director Tom Malinowski has said it’s “hard to imagine that the Taliban are going to stop believing or acting as they do.”

If that’s indeed the case, it certainly hasn’t stirred concern in Afghan President Hamid Karzai, whose feelings toward the Taliban were perhaps best expressed in 2009 when he said, “We call on our Taliban brothers to come home and embrace their land.” If that event does transpire, for the women and girls of Afghanistan, it promises to be a deadly homecoming.

Last week, a psychotic anti-multiculturalism, anti-immigrant, anti-Marxist named Anders Behring Breivik shot up a children’s summer camp in Norway. The left wing media was only too eager to point to his ideology as the rationale for the shooting. David Neiwert of CrooksandLiars.com stated that Breivik subscribed to the “theories about ‘Cultural Marxism’ … promoted by the likes of Andrew Breitbart​, among others.” The Daily Kos tried to link Breivik to Accuracy in Academia and the World Congress of Families. Think Progress blamed Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy, blogger Pamela Geller​, author Brigitte Gabriel​ and scholar of Islam Robert Spencer. In short, it was a repeat of the Sarah Palin-Gabby Giffords story, only writ large.

This begs the question: when should an ideology be held responsible for murder undertaken by its adherents?

The quickest answer — when an adherent of an ideology commits murder, the murderer is responsible — is obviously the wrong one. Adherents of every ideology commit murder on a regular basis. They may be doing so because they misinterpret the ideology or because they are insane.

A more rational answer would require an ideology to fulfill two basic criteria in order to be blamed for a particular act of violence. First, the ideology must itself promote the sort of violence at issue and the type of violence that takes place must bear some resemblance to the violence being promoted. This makes sense. If a group of pacifists shot-up a school, we could say with accuracy that they’d clearly misinterpreted pacifism. The same does not hold true of neo-Nazi ideology and Jews.

Second, a large number of adherents to the ideology must engage in or support the form of violence in question. It is possible for formerly violent ideologies to change over time — no one, for example, save Timothy McVeigh​, thinks that Constitutional ideology is violent anymore, despite Thomas Jefferson​’s proclamations about the tree of liberty and the blood of patriots.

Let’s take a test case, Islam. There is no question that Islamic texts promote violence against Jews and Christians. For example: the Koran famously proclaims, “Slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them captive, and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush.” With regard to Jews, one famous tidbit of Islamic oral tradition delightfully states, “The Day of Resurrection will not arrive until the Moslems make war against the Jews and kill them, and until a Jew is hiding behind a rock and tree, and the rock and tree say, ‘Oh Moslem, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him!’”

Now, if these verses and teachings were interpreted differently over time — as some seemingly violent verses in the Torah and the New Testament​ have been, almost universally, by Jewish and Christian scholars — we would have no problem.

But the second prong of the ideological violence test comes out positive here too. As polls show, huge swaths of Muslims endorse anti-Western violence, and the more religious they are, the more they endorse such violence. Over 50 percent of Jordanians and Lebanese support the terrorist group Hezbollah; over 40 percent of Nigerians and Indonesians do too; 30 percent of Egyptians and 19 percent of Pakistanis do as well. Those numbers are even higher, in general, for Hamas. In countries like Iran and territories like those controlled by the Palestinian Authority, the numbers skyrocket.

When Major Nidal Malik Hassan shoots up a cafeteria full of U.S. soldiers while shouting “Allahu Akhbar!,” then, it isn’t out of line to ask whether Islam is the ideological root cause. The answer may still be debatable, but it is a debate worth having.

The same does not hold true of conservatism with regard to Breivik. In fact, neither prong of the ideological violence test is met here. Conservatism does not promote political violence. Opponents of conservatism cannot come up with any significant support in articulated conservative thought that pushes violence to their chagrin. Certainly with regard to Breivik, the violence he pursued bore no relation to anything at issue in the anti-multicultural context — he shot up a bunch of Norwegian kids, not a group of immigrant Muslims.

Second, there is literally zero support for Breivik among conservatives. The left cannot find a single conservative who approved of Breivik’s acts. That’s a far cry from the literally hundreds of millions of Muslims who support terror groups across the globe.

It’s time to put away the “incitement to violence” club so often utilized these days to shut down free speech. Breivik’s evil doesn’t mean that conservatism promoted it or endorsed it. By the same token, not all ideologies are equal — some do promote violence. It is imperative that we apply the ideological violence test before dismissing the effects of ideology. It is also necessary that we apply the ideological violence test before pointing fingers at mainstream political actors for violent monstrosities that have nothing to do with them.